I celebrate St. Patrick’s Week: There’s a bar crawl in Philly the Saturday before the 17th, one in Allentown the Saturday after, and some kind of celebration on the date itself. No other holiday has such an extensive shelf life, except Christmas, and that’s less fun. (You don’t hear “The Christmas Shoes” at all during March. Enough said.) Other reasons St. Patrick’s Day rocks:

I’m Irish. This is one of the few things I know about my birth heritage, and my (adoptive) family is Irish too. I wouldn’t have gotten my ridiculous shamrock/Irish flag tattoo if it didn’t mean a lot to me.

On my hip. Ouch.

Green is my favorite color. I have plenty of green clothes and accessories, so I have no problems finding something different to wear for each day of celebrating. I like to see everyone else sporting green, too. It makes me feel like we’re all on the same team.

Many of these accessories, including the Irish Santa hat, belong to me. I loaned out some serious St. Patrick’s Day spirit on Saturday.

I have an excuse to dye foods green. Check out this quiche I made a few years ago. I definitely plan to eat green eggs for breakfast on Thursday, at least.

I’m sorry the utensils don’t match.

Irish Car Bombs taste great. I know the name is not so politically correct, but…that’s what they’re called. Chuck’s only charged $5 for them, but now that we live in the real world where things are expensive, I only buy these in March.

Those were the days.

Really, the most important thing is that I get to hang out with my awesome friends for longer than usual. (Do you know how long bar crawls take? Much longer than your average night out.) And bonding with others while spending too much time and money at the bars is the true meaning of St. Patrick’s Day.